Monday, August 31, 2009

In late 1972, DC pioneered a new comic format: Tabloid-Sized. The first of these Tabloid-Sized comics also called Treasury Editions appeared before Christmas 1972 and featured Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer in all-new adventures. The 64-page tabloid was priced at $1. The following summer DC returned to the format for a series of bi-monthly specials. The first of these specials featured Shazam and was labeled "Limited Collectors' Edition". DC used a numbering system on the tabloids beginning with #C-21. Like other Giant series of the time such as 100-Page Super Spectaculars, DC used a letter prefix and skipped several numbers. Issues #1-20 do not exist.

Thursday, August 27, 2009

For the most part, I was disappointed with the bulk of the output that the Neal Adams-owned Continuity Publishing Inc. comic book company produced during the 1980s. What peeved me the most was that the interior art was done by artists other than Neal Adams the majority of the time. Worse, the writing was usually of poor quality. However, there were some bright exceptions, as light reading fare goes, and that was the case with The Zero Patrol. The Zero Patrol were a team of five people from Earth, collected to protect the universe. The series was a European comic book written and drawn by Esteban Maroto, with Neal Adams supplying new inks. The comic originally ran for only two issues in 1984 and 1985 and each sported a new Neal Adams' drawn cover. Then the first two issues were reprinted and the series ran for a total of five issues in 1987-89, before Continuity Comics closed down.

Note: All five covers are drawn by Neal Adams except Zero Patrol #5, which was a Neal Adams and Kevin Nowlan collaboration.

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

TRIXTER was formed in 1983 in Paramus, New Jersey by Steve Brown and Peter Loran. After a year in the basement and the addition of new drummer Mark Gus Scott, they played their first live gigs. They began playing the New Jersey – New York club scene and built a huge following of fans. In 1988 bassist PJ Farley joined TRIXTER, finalizing the lineup. With every gig the band was drawing more and more people to their shows and by May 1989 the band landed a deal with

Regular readers probably have noticed that I am on a Neal Adams kick and that includes all forms of media the Great One participated in. The more I think about it, the more I say to myself, "of course Neal Adams provided art for music albums." That brings me to the band Trixter. I bought Trixter's first CD because of the Neal Adams cover art, which you should recognize if you're an Adams fan. Do you see Toyboy, Armor and Crazy Man in there? This kind of music isn't ordinarily my cup of tea, but a couple of the songs are surprisingly good, or so I thought when this self-titled debut was released in 1990. My favorite song off the disc is "One in a Million," which I'll include as a down-loadable MP3 audio file—of course!

Oh! The Inhumanity! Marvel Comics' Amazing Adventures was a split title featuring the Inhumans (initially both written and drawn by Jack Kirby) and The Black Widow (initially by writer Gary Friedrich and penciler John Buscema) and then Roy Thomas and Gerry Conway and Neal Adams for issues #5-8. The Widow was dropped after vol. 2, #8, and full-length Inhumans stories ran for two issues before that feature, too, was dropped. Neal Adams' art is at its peak here and I think it's superior to that of his work on Green Lantern, which is saying quite a lot. I also have War of the Worlds in Amazing Adventures #18, which also sports Neal Adams art, but frankly I don't think it's very good. However, if you'd like to see it anyway then let me know and I'll upload it as quickly as I can.

In Brightest Day, In Blackest Night... These frequently reprinted Green Lantern/Green Arrow stories from the early ‘70s are both a harbinger of things to come in American comics and a dead end. As sales for DC’s Green Lantern fell, young writer O’Neil, influenced by ‘60s liberal politics, decided to have superheroes confront real social issues of the time, including racism, political corruption and capitalistic exploitation of workers. O’Neil compared Green Lantern to a policeman, accustomed to unquestioningly accepting the status quo. Green Lantern is clued into social ills by the newly radicalized superhero archer Green Arrow, whom O’Neil revamped into a contemporary Robin Hood. O’Neil thus started a trend of "relevant" comics that quickly faded. Nor have these stories aged well. Influenced by magazine illustrators, Adams’s art was acclaimed at the time for its realism, but now seems to glamorize naturalistic subjects. Though professing to portray moral complexities, these stories make their "real life" malefactors as purely evil as standard costumed villains. O’Neil vividly characterizes his two heroes, but they still lack true depth.

Thursday, August 20, 2009

Marvel Preview was a magazine-sized black-and-white showcase comic book published by Curtis Magazines, an imprint of Marvel. (The final issue was published by the Marvel Magazines Group, another Marvel imprint.)

Marvel Preview is notable for containing the first and early appearances of many Marvel characters like Blade (issue #3), Star-Lord (#4), Dominic Fortune (#2), Satana (#7), and many more. It also contained premiere artwork by Keith Giffen (in the back up story of issue #4 and #7, "The Sword in the Star"), and the first teaming of the celebrated X-Men creative trio of writer Chris Claremont, penciller John Byrne, and inker Terry Austin (in issue #11, featuring Star-Lord.)

Despite a quarterly frequency, the magazine had a history of scheduling problems, with one "Next Issue" ad after another proving inaccurate. For example, #2 promised Thor the Mighty for #3, but a Blade story originally promoted as a serial for the recently cancelled Vampire Tales appeared, while the Thor material was not seen until #10. As of #25, the title was changed to Bizarre Adventures, which published an additional ten issues before folding in Feb. 1983. The final issue, #34, was a color comic book, a "Hate the Holidays" issue fronted with a story featuring Howard the Duck.